Getting Work Done Through Others > 2.0 Weekly Overview > Welcome to Week 2
- I hope, by now, you have successfully completed Week One.
- The content for Week Two draws upon what we covered in Week One.
- See you in Week Two, which is on “Getting work done through others.
Getting Work Done Through Others > 2.0 Weekly Overview > Study Plan for Week 2
- How is Week 1 different from Week 2? Week 1 was largely content focus, and it required you to think and understand.
- The focus for week 2 is on getting work done through others.
- I want you to draw upon your experiences as the focus for Week 2 is on reflection.
- As mentioned, in Week 2 also, we have given some links to the additional resources so please take out time and visit those links.
- I hope Mr. Curious is helping you to ponder and think.
Getting Work Done Through Others > 2.1 Meeting Multiple Expectations > Challenges of Prioritization
- Hello! Hello, Sir! This is Neeta from HR. There is a training organized for your team members on effective team building at 10 AM today, and yet I have got confirmation from only two members of your team.
- These are the things I need to address immediately: Send the team members for the training, attend the Church Gate opening ceremony, and respond to urgent emails.
- The things I can complete within this week are meet my manager and understand his priorities and expectations.
- Meet each team member individually to understand their goals and tasks, understand challenges and obstacles faced by my manager, and also meet people from other departments.
Getting Work Done Through Others > 2.1 Meeting Multiple Expectations > Prioritization-Part 1
- In some sense, all of us as managers need to have the capacity to be able to prioritize our time, our energy, and our effort into activities that create the desired impact for the organization.
- What is prioritization? Prioritization is the ability to be able to look at the to-do list and identify which of the tasks in the to-do list are the ones where I want to invest my time, effort, and energy.
- I am sure, all of us as first-time managers have seen that we begin with a list, and at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day when we go back and check-it doesn’t look like the list has got completed.
Getting Work Done Through Others > 2.2 Understanding Team Members > Benefits of Team Diversity
- When I asked him, “What does it mean to be a first-time manager?” He turned around and said; “Professor, the only problem that I have right now is that somehow my team members don’t think like me.
- Which is why there is a need for you to direct, to guide, to support, and to coach your team members.
- Often what managers use is their own yardsticks of how they evaluate themselves.
- One of the managers was telling me that his direct reportees don’t take the initiative to come and talk to him.
- And he said, when he was a individual contributor-he would go more often to his managers to ask, and seek, and raise questions.
- As a manager, one of the most important rule is that-you don’t use your yardstick to evaluate others.
- As manager, it’s important also to recognize that if everybody thought like you then maybe you are not needed.
Getting Work Done Through Others > 2.4 Weekly Insights and Conclusion > Weekly Insights
- Vasanthi: I often find the delegation is the most difficult thing for first-time managers. Ramya: I make sure that I say”by when” and what do I mean by the “what”.
- In successful and not-so-successful managers is really the capability to take tough decision.
- Vasanthi: Delegation, we all know, is the heart of being an effective manager.
- First-time managers who find themselves overburdened with work delegation is the only way for them to free time up.
- I often find that delegation is the most difficult thing for first-time managers.
- Ramya, we all know that delegation is really the centre piece to being an effective manager.
- When you look back over the last year what has been the most difficult about delegation? Ramya: I think once I got over that misconception that if I waste time delegating to people and supervising them I might as well as do it myself faster.
- ” I ended up doing all the urgent unimportant activities and my important tasks which were supposed to be handled by me left undone.
- How many of those are urgent? How many of those are important? Now, urgent and important are two dimensions which are very critical for first-time managers because what is urgent will get done, what is important will often get done much later.
- Given the roles that you play in organizations where there are several activities to be performed by you which actually will be decided for you by your managers or maybe even by the organizational demands, in such contexts, it becomes extremely important for you to be able to prioritize your own activities every day.
- Another aspect to reflect upon is, “what am I good at?”, “what am I not good at?” And, this is something that we will pick up in the last module on managing self because self-awareness is one of the critical aspects of being an effective manager.
